Constituting, Limiting, Regulating and Justifying Multilevel Governance of Interdependent Public Goods: Methodological Problems of International Economic Law Research

Abstract

This contribution discusses legal and methodological problems of multilevel governance of the international trading, development, environmental and legal systems from the perspective of “public goods theories” and related legal theories. The state-centred, power-oriented governance practices in worldwide organizations fail to protect effectively human rights, transnational rule of law and other international public goods for the benefit of citizens. Their criticism by civil society, democratic parliaments and courts of justice prompts increasing opposition to non-inclusive, intergovernmental rule-making, as in the case of the 2011 Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement rejected by the European Parliament. The “democracy deficits” and morally often unjustified power politics underlying “Westphalian intergovernmentalism” weaken the overall coherence of multilevel regulation of interdependent public goods that interact “horizontally” (e.g., the monetary, trading, development, environmental and related legal systems) as well as “vertically” (e.g., in case of “aggregate public goods” composed of local, national, regional and worldwide public goods). The “laboratory” of European multilevel governance offers lessons for reforming worldwide governance institutions dominated by executives. The integration of nation states into an interdependent, globalized world requires a multilevel integration law in order to protect transnational public goods more effectively. Legal and constitutional theories need to be integrated into public goods research and must promote stronger legal, judicial and democratic accountability of intergovernmental rule-making vis-a-vis citizens on the basis of “cosmopolitan constitutionalism” evaluating the legitimacy of national legal systems also in terms of their contribution to protecting cosmopolitan rights and transnational public goods.